


Home Base

by Soronia



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Baseball, F/M, Office Sex, RST, Smut, The Unnatural, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:20:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29920914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soronia/pseuds/Soronia
Summary: Look, in the entire history of baseball, prolonged two-person batting practice has never been a prelude to baseball. It’s only ever been a prelude to “baseball.”
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 12
Kudos: 71





	Home Base

It had started on the road between one case and another, no time to return home in between. That liminal space opened up to swallow them both, tired and keyed up and high on both recent triumph and impending mystery so that it was easy, in the end, to reach out and find each other at last. And it was easy from then on, at least on the road. No one knew them, and the script was already written on cheap motels and takeout. (It was practically what they were _for.)_ It made sense on the road in a way it didn’t yet make sense in DC. Washington was home territory, where they ostensibly still had separate lives. Where there were rules and entanglements, where someone might see, where they might have to grapple with mundane reality at long last.

A Saturday morning appointment at the office— _early_ Saturday morning, absurdly so—suggested to her that maybe he was trying to change that. So she put on her nicest bra, but also a perfectly serviceable and comfortable pair of underwear, because while she could be a masochist she wasn’t insane.

And good thing, because he wanted to get filthy in the literal sense: old newspapers from dusty archival corners, stack upon stack of them just to try to find “anomalies.” For a brief, shining moment she’d thought it was a cute ruse because he was flirting back and grabbing at her under the auspices of grabbing at her ice cream, standing way too close—

And then he did a sudden about-face, went haring off on some solo adventure, and she’d gone home. There was no point in staying. Either she was going to get a call in six hours from a hospital, a distant police precinct, or Mulder himself, or she’d see him on Monday.

—

It actually took ten hours, but the call did come: an ambiguous command to show up to “the park,” and damn it, she _did_ know what that meant but she didn’t like that she knew, or that he knew that she knew. For someone who talked so much, he didn’t have to be so cryptic.

But then, she had her own hangups about saying what she really meant.

She found him in an honest-to-god baseball jersey or uniform or whatever, and for a minute he pretended he wasn’t showing off for her, taking big showy swings, and she pretended she wasn’t appreciating the view.

But then he reeled her in, and she couldn’t keep pretending that she wasn’t enjoying the game. The games, plural. One was whacking baseballs; the other was pressing her hips backward ever so slightly to see if his interest was as innocent as it seemed.

It wasn’t. He pressed back, grinding against her just a little bit more each time, until she didn’t know which part of this whole diversion thrilled her more.

Which was all well and good for about ten minutes, but then it was very clear there was no part two planned. They were just…in a baseball field with some weirdly Dickensian ragamuffin, with no privacy in sight. Where were this kid’s parents? Had Mulder _adopted_ him somehow? Where would that even go on the weirdness rankings—above aliens, but below the immortal liver-devouring mutant?

Mulder was right about one thing—she really did feel the urge to whack something as hard as she could.

When they hit the last ball, the kid shouted something that was probably sports jargon and ran off. Mulder unwrapped himself from her with a sweet reluctance but didn’t seem inclined to make any further moves.

“That was surprisingly pleasant, Mulder, but—”

“Oh, no, hey, we’re not done. He’s just going to get more.”

She wasn’t going to scream. She wasn’t. “It’s almost 9 o’clock. Shouldn’t he be in bed?”

Mulder just shrugged, like kids were one mystery beyond his pay grade. “C’mon, get back here. Round two.”

And God help her, she almost gave in. He looked earnest and vulnerable but also just the slightest bit like he wanted to rip her clothes off, and she _liked_ being enveloped by all of that. With her back up against his chest she could feel his voice like a big cat purring. “For _my_ birthday.”

“Early birthday,” he corrected. “Or late.”

“Uh-huh. Well if it’s my birthday, I saw we give junior over there a break and go get a drink instead.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said, deliberately light. “I know a place.”

“It’s not that Tam Lin place, is it? Because—”

“ _No,_ and for the last time, I did not know they had live music, _or_ that you apparently have Oasis-cover-band-induced PTSD.”

“It’s not PTSD if it’s not _post_ , Scully. That band hasn’t stopped assaulting my ears since 1991.”

The apparently-orphan child was almost back with a whole new bucket of balls. “Come on, Mulder. You’ll like it. Let’s go.”

“But I already paid—”

She just started walking. And thank God, he followed.

—

“Where’s this bar?”

“Oh, not a bar.”

“Are we going back to the office? Why, you forget something?”

She made a noncommittal noise and pretended to be engrossed in checking her blind spot. And then she casually mentioned that her nephew was really into Godzilla and weren’t giant sea monsters silly? and off he went, telling her about the long history of deep-sea denizens and forgetting all about where they were or were not going. He went on talking straight through parking and wending down to the basement, and it was a good thing he was so smart, because God, he was _so dumb_ sometimes.

“…even the Bible mentions Leviathan as a quasi-benevolent entity, more like God’s pet than his nemesis. But what’s really interesting is Leviathan’s dry land counterpart, the—what are you doing?”

She’d gone not to her desk (such as it was), but to her side of the filing cabinets, digging around all the way in the back of the lowest drawer. The stupid things were overcrowded with cases, so Y-Z ended up on the floor before—“aha!” She withdrew the bottle of Johnnie Walker.

“Why Scully, have you been holding out on me?”

“A girl’s gotta have some secrets.” She took two coffee mugs from her own collection—the only ones guaranteed to be clean—and poured a generous finger in each while he took his customary seat. “Remember Bradonivic from Field Training?”

“No, I had Marsh.”

“Oh. Well, Bradonivic always said you need two things at your desk: pencils instead of pens, because you’re gonna fuck up, and this, for the same reason. I have it for the opposite reason, but it was still good advice.”

“Opposite reason?”

“Yeah, celebrating, closing a case. Explains why there’s so much left,” she said, and he acknowledged that with a wry little lift of his cup.

“Cheers,” she agreed, and closed her eyes to savor the burn.

Only to open them again and see Mulder slug his back like a shot and inevitably choke on it. “Good stuff,” he wheezed, and she came around the desk to pat him on the back—a little harder than necessary, if she were being honest. _Waste of good dram._

“You lived in England, Mulder, didn’t you learn how to drink scotch? Or not drink it?”

“I stuck to beer and vodka. Scotch ain’t cheap.”

“No, but since it’s my birthday…” she said, and poured him another. He raised an eyebrow but said nothing, only sipped it obediently as she leaned against the desk, close but not touching.

“So what do you want for your very early or very late birthday, Mulder?”

He didn’t take his eyes off her. A slow heat pulsed between them, the throb echoing down her spine to sit deliciously between her thighs. He hadn’t missed the point after all. He was just going to take it slow. Deliberate. _Mmm._

“Oh, I dunno. Bigfoot hair, Mothman antennae. I’m easy.”

She edged closer still. “Where does one shop for imaginary animal byproducts?”

“You know that guy who sets up on F and 11th?”

“The guy with the drug paraphernalia?”

“ _Drug paraphernalia?_ Wow, you must have been a lot of fun in high school.”

She spread her legs a little, one on either side of his knee, before giving him her usual look. “The guy selling glow sticks and clay bongs, then.”

“And those,” he said, pointing behind her on the desk. She looked, but found nothing that stood out in the general chaos until he leaned forward—very close now—and grabbed a troll doll with a sharpie makeover, doodles covering all of it. He handed it to her, and when he sat back his knee was against hers, ever so subtly pressuring her legs further apart.

“Ah. Tattooed children’s toys, too. What a great business model.”

His tongue darted out. “You like tattoos.” The pressure on her leg increased to a longer line of heat as he inched closer.

“I do.” She met his eyes and everything went very warm at the edges.

“Mm. Consider that your very early or very late work anniversary present, then.”

“You shouldn’t have,” she said flatly, or as flatly as she could when he was biting his lip like that.

“What, you were expecting a watch? That’s not how we do things here in the basement.”

She set down the troll and her mug and leaned more heavily into the desk, all the better to stretch her legs even further toward him. He started jittering his leg against her thigh. “How do you do things?” she asked.

She felt him get up more than saw it—one second he was starting her down and the next she was level with his chest and his leg pressed against her groin, grinding just enough to make her exhale audibly. She looked up at him anyway, challenging. She’d learned very early never to give ground, and she wasn’t about to start now.

Somehow this had turned into a game of chicken, and he paused before he’d leaned down all the way. “Well, at six years you get to renegotiate for more perks.” He nipped at her but didn’t _quite_ commit. 

“What about a desk?”

“Desk is ten years,” he said.

She pushed herself backward so that she could fully sit, pulling him even further forward. “What about this one?”

“This one’s mine.”

She pushed him, playful. “I’ll fight you for it.”

He went with the push and pulled away—and grinned down at her. “Okay,” he said, and whipped his shirt off over his head.

 _Oh, fuck._ She’d lost this one. Game, set match. Whatever the fuck the baseball term was. Enough foreplay. She wanted him inside her. She grabbed him by his belt loops, shucked off his jeans while he helped her out of her shirt and fumbled with her bra. But she’d never had any patience for that particular struggle, and they swapped with practiced ease, her to undo the clasp, him moving lower. Papers and tchotchkies and pencil holders went clattering to the floor as she cleared more space and he wrestled with her pants. “I love your suits but I fucking hate your suits, Scully.”

“You love them?”

She finally wriggled the right way and he tugged them free. “Yeah,” he breathed, reverent now. He slid his hands down her thighs, only just brushing her lips before sliding up her hips. _No, no more fooling around._ She dragged him forward and guided him inside in one very smooth motion, made all the more gratifying when he all but collapsed on her, groaning. He smelled like sweat already, and like cut grass and night air, and she fell backward too, momentarily overcome.

He didn’t give her time to recover. He just started moving, and _oh_ this desk was the perfect height, and how did he _do_ that, get her this close this fast?

But he was saying something—something coherent, no less, when she wasn’t sure if the sounds she was making were words or just animal noises. “…untouchable and I want to tear them off you.”

His voice got low and rough during sex, and it drove her insane. _Don’t stop moving. Don’t stop talking._ All she managed, though, was “ _more._ ”

“I’ve wanted to for years. _Years_ ,” He growled it, deep in his throat and thrust even deeper inside her, and yes, she felt it, the pent-up frustrations shaking loose inside her too as she bucked her hips and tried to get him deeper still. “Right here.”

“Tell me,” she gasped.

“It was—a few months in. You were wearing—this huge blazer, but in the afternoon—you stood up and took it off—and I thought—I could fit my hands around her waist—with room to spare.”

He did put his hands on her waist then, bracing himself, and she knew what was coming but “Oh _God_ —” he hit her exactly right. He knew how to get her by now, all that practice on the road making for such perfect torture. Again, again, again, as hard as he could, and his jaw was clenched and his whole body looked ready to snap.

“I want—oh _God_ —” Hearing him about to break sent her slamming into her climax, and she knocked over the last remaining papers bringing her hand to her mouth to stifle the sounds she was making. He followed her down, sublimating his usual shouting into biting her shoulder. HIs motions went erratic and then still, and the office filled back up with the sound of their breathing.

The much-vaunted simultaneous (or near-) orgasm was fine, she supposed, but she preferred being able to watch him come. _Next time._

“What about you?” he asked, catching his breath.

“Hm?”

“When did you first want to defile this office?”

“Oh—the first time I met you.”

“Really?”

She smiled up at him but let her nails dig ever so slightly into his neck, trailed them down his back. “Mm-hmm. I thought you were cute, and I thought you were full of yourself. I wanted to take you down a notch.”

He groaned in to her shoulder. “Tell me that again when my refractory period’s over.”

She chuckled and pushed him off, hopped down off the desk. His stupid jersey made itself useful for cleaning up, although she stopped him when he went to wipe the desk. 

“Leave it.” She wanted to leave a mark. _This is_ my _desk._ And she wanted him to be useless when he saw it again on Monday morning.

He shuddered with delight, kissed her quick and hard before tugging on his pants. They all but dressed each other, handing over articles of clothing and doing up last buttons like they were rushing to a crime scene, but this wasn’t a case. And when her shirt was smoothed and his jeans were adjusted, that became suddenly, awkwardly clear.

He cleared his throat. “So… You want to watch a movie?”

She knew what this was. This was the invitation to break the other half of the rules, the ones that had taken them quite a few weeks to break when on the road. Sex was one thing; sleeping in the same bed, waking up and facing the morning together, was quite another. Doing that here in DC was a much, much bigger step than fucking in the office, and from the way he was biting his lip and fiddling with the office supplies, he knew it.

If she said no, he’d go along with it. It wouldn’t be the end of anything, it would just draw the line in the sand. And maybe he’d try again in a few months, or maybe this was where it would all stop, the basement and no further into the night, the basement and no further into the daylight either.

No. She was sick of lines and rules and she wasn’t playing a game. “Sure,” she said. “But all the rental stores are closed by now.”

He kept his face neutral, but the rest of him lit up like Christmas. It wasn’t anything she could describe to anyone else, except to say that somehow—in clear violation of the laws of physics—every molecule of him started to vibrate at a faster frequency, one that she could feel. “My place, then. I have a whole collection.”

“Yes, and I’ve very specifically not said anything about that many times before.”

“A whole other collection. Family friendly.”

“I doubt that,” she said, getting her coat.

“Okay, maybe not stuff you’d watch with kids, but stuff you could at least watch with your parents. Why, can you do better?”

She sighed. “No, I’ve only got videos I watch with my nephew. Over, and over, and over. Walt Disney can kiss my ass.”

He laughed. “You have a favorite Disney movie, Scully?”

“Mm, if I say Beauty and the Beast is that too on the nose?”

He only laughed again. He seemed a little giddy, but then again, she did too. “Why, do you have one?”

“Little Mermaid.”

“Oh, no. Do I want to know why?” _I am not putting seashells on my tits._

He frowned at her. “What? I just…really want there to be mermaids.”

—

There was, in fact, almost a whole bookshelf of videos that featured the Hollywood-normal levels of T&A. She’d made such a point of not noticing it that, well, she hadn’t ever noticed it. They both inspected it for maybe half a minute before Mulder began pulling out options.

“No sci-fi.”

“ _What?_ ” He pulled a shocked face, even clapping a hand to his cheek. “Why not?”

“Because I won’t think it’s science, and you won’t think it’s fiction, Mulder.”

That got a genuine laugh out of him. “All right. What then?”

She inspected the shelves. B horror and documentaries studded the sci-fi collection, neither of which interested her either. But then, down in a corner, she found the only promising title.

“Tombstone?”

“Tombstone.”

They both smiled at each other for a puzzling few moments, delighted without quite understanding why, and it was only when Mulder went to throw in a bag of microwave popcorn that she realized the reason: it wasn’t a compromise. Good partnerships, the Bureau and every self-help book declared, were about compromise. But maybe great ones were _un_ compromising. They challenged each other, sure, but Mulder never asked her to compromise her methods. She never asked him to compromise his beliefs. They weren’t coming to some watered-down middle ground, _I’ll take out the trash if you do the dishes, I’ll believe in Sasquatch if you stop rambling about werewolves_ , they got to stand firm. It made it easier to stand back to back that way. And he would never compromise in having her back.

 _Or front_ , she thought, snickering to herself. _If I’m making off-color comments, maybe he’ll be a smidge more rational._ He came back in with a bag ripped open and offered her the first handful. _Just a smidge though._ Not compromise, but accommodation. She would clear out a drawer for him at her place, and he would rearrange some of his piles or give her her own filing box, and maybe he’d clean the damn bathroom and she’d admit that, okay, there were _better_ ways to squeeze a tube of toothpaste but maybe not “right” and “wrong” ways. And they would change each other but not change _for_ each other, because this was still weird, but it was _their_ weird, and it worked. They worked.

“So, there’s an interesting connection between Tombstone and Batman—several, actually—”

“Hush and watch the movie, Mulder.”

He did subside into silence, although that was probably more because she leaned into his side. He leaned back. At some point he was going to pull the teenage yawn routine, and at some point she was going to fight him for the last half-popped kernels of popcorn. This was just a game they played and were going to keep playing. At home as well as away games, now, she supposed. Well, that was all right with her. Home was exactly where she wanted to be.


End file.
